…Can’t say it, can’t do it

Ghana’s Vice-President Mahamudu
Bawumia is an interesting speaker. Eloquent and proud of his country’s
progress, watching Bawumia address the recently held Africa-India business
summit in New Delhi, India, was an inspiring moment.

“Africa is on the move,” Bawumia told the summit, “a continent eager to shake off past failures due to blind colonial and cold-war alignments and sheer bad governance.”

There is plenty of evidence
backing Bawumia’s optimism, in spite of Africa’s torrid past and current woes.
If not in majority countries on the continent, certainly a few are proving
‘Africa on the rise’ is more than a mantra.

Today, Africa is home to 10 of the
world’s 15 fastest-growing economies, including Bawumia’s own Ghana. And there
is enough evidence suggesting that the rest of the continent could catch the
train, if it would rise to the occasion.

The question is, however, how our
own country is fairing in this quest for African renaissance.

The answer is, rather,
disheartening; while others rise, we are stuck in stagnation.

This is why the on-going election
season is a crucial one. Because it is an opportunity to elect for ourselves
the future we want.

But before voting, close scrutiny
to the various political agendas in contention is necessary.

Oftentimes, the manifestos,
rallies, debates and talk shows are an opportunity for opportunists—
masquerading as leaders—to exploit and sell us lies.

But when we watch debates, such as
the one the country was preparing to watch on Friday as I wrote this, we still
should take this exercise seriously—although with caution necessary when
dealing with politicians of this kind.

For one, it’s no brainer to say
we’re much better off entrusting leadership to a candidate seemingly with a
clear plan of action than gambling on anyone without a vision, from the very
outset.

We might be disappointed if the
guy who sounded visionary during campaign turns out to be a flop in government,
but to elect a guy without any semblance of a vision and hope he turns good in
office is, for want of a better word, dangerous!

Five years ago, the
Cashgate-plagued presidency of Joyce Banda chickened out of the debates. JB, as
the former president is fondly known, lost the subsequent vote decisively. She
could skip the inquest, but not the vote.

Away from Mutharika, UTM’s Saulos
Chilima and MCP’s Lazarus Chakwera have promised us the moon. We need to hear
exactly how they intend to turn those lofty dreams into reality—and call them
out when found wanting.

The thing is, whoever wants to
become our President must in the very least, be able to sell us a clear vision
we can all underpin our hopes on.

That’s what elections ought to
be—an opportunity to elect for ourselves a shared destiny.

That choice must always be
inspired by the vision offered by the candidates—not flimsy issues such as
handouts or tribal considerations.

For every country that has been
transformed, it has done so thanks to visionary leadership.

Our history further suggests that
no leader should be elected or rejected based on their party’s history
primarily because our parties are not distinguishable from each other based on
any set of ideologies.

Our politicians and parties don’t
believe in any ideology. The politicians just jump from one party to another
based on their survival instinct and with so much executive power concentrated
in the Presidency, it’s not the party, but the leader who counts.

So, let us listen carefully. But
if a leader is arrogant enough to avoid accountability during this period, or
they just mumble-and-jumble some gibberish (confusing the same as vision for a
country) when the voting booths open on May 21, we must use a new maxim: “if
they couldn’t say it, they can’t do it”. That, more than any other part of the
current spectacle, will give meaning to democracy and edge us closer to join
the league of African countries on the move. n